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We describe an embarrassingly parallel, anytime Monte Carlo method for likelihood-free models. The algorithm starts with the view that the stochasticity of the pseudo-samples generated by the simulator can be controlled externally by a…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2015-12-03 Edward Meeds , Max Welling

In this paper, a method to exactly sample the trajectories of inverse subordinators (in the sense of the finite-dimensional distributions), jointly with the undershooting or overshooting process, is provided. The method applies to general…

Probability · Mathematics 2025-11-05 Ivan Biočić , Daniel E. Cedeño-Girón , Bruno Toaldo

In this article we consider computing expectations w.r.t.~probability laws associated to a certain class of stochastic systems. In order to achieve such a task, one must not only resort to numerical approximation of the expectation, but…

Computation · Statistics 2017-10-30 Ajay Jasra , Kengo Kamatani , Kody Law , Yan Zhou

We develop diffusion-based samplers for target distributions known up to a normalising constant. To this end, we rely on the well-known diffusion path that smoothly interpolates between a simple base distribution and the target, popularised…

Understanding decisions made by neural networks is key for the deployment of intelligent systems in real world applications. However, the opaque decision making process of these systems is a disadvantage where interpretability is essential.…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-04-12 Kai Fischer , Jonas Schneider

Over the last decade there has been increasing concern about the biases embodied in traditional evaluation methods for Natural Language Processing/Learning, particularly methods borrowed from Information Retrieval. Without knowledge of the…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2015-04-06 David M. W. Powers

Monte Carlo simulations are widely used to simulate complex molecular systems, but standard approaches suffer from metastability. Lately, the use of non-local proposal updates in a collective-variable (CV) space has been proposed in several…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2026-04-20 Christoph Schönle , Davide Carbone , Marylou Gabrié , Tony Lelièvre , Gabriel Stoltz

In many problems, complex non-Gaussian and/or nonlinear models are required to accurately describe a physical system of interest. In such cases, Monte Carlo algorithms are remarkably flexible and extremely powerful approaches to solve such…

Computation · Statistics 2015-04-23 Thi Le Thu Nguyen , Francois Septier , Gareth W. Peters , Yves Delignon

Monte Carlo methods play important part in modern statistical physics. The application of these methods suffer from two main difficulties.The first is caused by the relatively small number of particles that can participate in any numerical…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2007-05-23 A. Brandt , V. Ilyin

We consider the theoretical analysis of Multiscale Sampling Methods, which are a new class of gradient-free Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods for high dimensional inverse differential equation problems. A detailed presentation of…

Methodology · Statistics 2025-03-06 Lucas Seiffert , Felipe Pereira

Many probabilistic models introduce strong dependencies between variables using a latent multivariate Gaussian distribution or a Gaussian process. We present a new Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithm for performing inference in models with…

Computation · Statistics 2010-03-22 Iain Murray , Ryan Prescott Adams , David J. C. MacKay

In the following article we provide an exposition of exact computational methods to perform parameter inference from partially observed network models. In particular, we consider the duplication attachment (DA) model which has a likelihood…

Computation · Statistics 2013-06-20 Junshan Wang , Ajay Jasra , Maria De Iorio

The advances in materials and biological sciences have necessitated the use of molecular simulations to study polymers. The Markov chain Monte Carlo simulations enable the sampling of relevant microstates of polymeric systems by traversing…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2023-07-24 Monika Angwani , Tushar Mahendrakar , Kaustubh Rane

Generating diverse samples under hard constraints is a core challenge in many areas. With this work we aim to provide an integrative view and framework to combine methods from the fields of MCMC, constrained optimization, as well as…

Robotics · Computer Science 2026-02-10 Marc Toussaint , Cornelius V. Braun , Joaquim Ortiz-Haro

In parameter estimation problems one computes a posterior distribution over uncertain parameters defined jointly by a prior distribution, a model, and noisy data. Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) is often used for the numerical solution of…

Numerical Analysis · Mathematics 2017-11-15 Matthias Morzfeld , Marcus S. Day , Ray W. Grout , George Shu Heng Pau , Stefan A. Finsterle , John B. Bell

This paper proposes a new theory and methodology to tackle the problem of unifying distributed analyses and inferences on shared parameters from multiple sources, into a single coherent inference. This surprisingly challenging problem…

Methodology · Statistics 2019-07-22 Hongsheng Dai , Murray Pollock , Gareth Roberts

We propose sequential Monte Carlo (SMC) methods for sampling the posterior distribution of state-space models under highly informative observation regimes, a situation in which standard SMC methods can perform poorly. A special case is…

Computation · Statistics 2015-07-10 Pierre Del Moral , Lawrence M. Murray

Bayesian neural networks (BNNs) provide a formalism to quantify and calibrate uncertainty in deep learning. Current inference approaches for BNNs often resort to few-sample estimation for scalability, which can harm predictive performance,…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-02-14 Zhe Zeng , Guy Van den Broeck

This paper is a broad and accessible survey of the methods we have at our disposal for Monte Carlo gradient estimation in machine learning and across the statistical sciences: the problem of computing the gradient of an expectation of a…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2020-09-30 Shakir Mohamed , Mihaela Rosca , Michael Figurnov , Andriy Mnih

We propose a method to efficiently integrate truncated probability densities. The method uses Markov chain Monte Carlo method to sample from a probability density matching the function being integrated. The required normalisation or…

Computation · Statistics 2013-12-10 A. John Arul , Kannan Iyer